Talk:First-past-the-post voting

Latest comment: 26 days ago by Howard the Duck in topic Why is this a different article from Plurality?

Criticisms Unrepresentative numbers are wrong and don't match edit

Unlike what it says, Liberals were over-represented by 50 seats. they should have received 134 seats not 133 as written. Greens were unrepresented by 10. they should have received 11 seats, not 12 as written. Currently we have Liberals over-represented by 51 and other parties under-represented by 49 seats, which does not match and can be seen to be wrong if you look at the math. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.3.203.119 (talk) 21:11, 31 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

"Effects" section edit

I propose editing this sentence: "The effect of a system based on plurality voting spread over a number of separate districts is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distributed support gain a disproportionately small share.", my proposed edit is as follows:

I propose deleting ".. and parties with more geographically concentrated support.." because in reality a party with too great a geographic concentration of voters could lose out because because of waster "surplus" votes. Friend-of-the-planet-99 (talk) 12:23, 27 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for inviting consensus on a difficult topic. So long as you can provide a supporting citation, no reason why not. It does strike me as a bit too 'purist' though, the article is about FPTP, not about proportionality.
But I notice that the current text is uncited, which is a problem in itself! I wonder if you have misread what it is trying to say because it doesn't say it very well. I believe that what it is trying to say is that a party with geographically concentrated support (PQ, SNP) get a "disproportionate" representation but only when set against their share of the total national (Canada, UK) vote. They would say that they got a fair share of their "nations'" vote, Quebec and Scotland. (Arguably, FPTP gave the SNP far more than their fair share).
So I guess I am saying that
  1. the para needs a copyedit for clarity.
  2. your reason for the change is valid but too far off topic / too subtle for this article.
  3. citations needed!

I hope that helps. --John Maynard Friedman (talk)€

Thinking about this a bit more, the phrase you propose to delete is quite important. The 'test case' it describes is the 2017 United Kingdom general election, where the Liberal Democrats got 1.8% of the seats with 7.5% of the vote but the SNP got 5.4% of the seats with 3% of the UK vote. It seems to me to be really important not to lose that perspective. As I said above, the paragraph as it exists badly needs a rewrite so perhaps you could accommodate you concern by doing so? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:32, 27 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

No mentioning of "election inversion" - why? edit

Election inversion is a standard term; and a phenomenon mainly occurring with FPTP (albeit not only: Rounding procedures can produce them also in proportional systems). Why isn't this even mentioned here, let alone discussed - see of course 2000 and 2016 in the US (Michael Geruso, Dean Spears, Ishaana Talesara. 2019. "Inversions in US Presidential Elections: 1836-2016." NBER paper, slides by Nicholas R. Miller). --User:Haraldmmueller 08:20, 18 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Haraldmmueller: I think this is the same as "majority reversal"? I added a note with these sources to First-past-the-post voting#Majority reversal. Thanks for the tip! -- Beland (talk) 19:32, 14 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Plurality reversals - other examples of 2nd party (in votes) winning majority of seats edit

Newfoundland and Labrador 1989, New Brunswick 1974 & 2006, Quebec 1966 & 1998, Saskatchewan 1986, British Columbia 1996.----Bancki (talk) 12:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Choose-one voting edit

The folks at FairVote and the folks at the Center for Election Science have both been referring to this method as "choose-one voting".[1][2]. It would appear that there's now a redirect from "Choose-one voting" to this article. Should we put something to the effect of "also called 'Choose-one voting" in the introduction to this voting method? -- RobLa (talk) 03:15, 25 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@RobLa: Added to the article; thanks for the suggestion and the citations! -- Beland (talk) 16:15, 10 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

References

Follow encyclopedia-article rules, please - what does Compensatory mean edit

The phrases "non-compensatory" and "compensatory" are used in a technical sense but nowhere defined, and neither is hot-linked to another Wikipedia article where we can learn what those words mean. "Compensating" FOR WHAT?2600:8804:8800:11F:1C64:8308:33BC:E2D6 (talk) 02:10, 22 August 2022 (UTC)Christopher L. SimpsonReply

Etymology edit

Why is this called 'first past the post'? What post? The winner is the one with the most votes, not the one with more than 50% of the votes. OsamaBinLogin (talk) 17:57, 28 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Some people seem unhealthily attached to bad metaphors! —Tamfang (talk) 06:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

While we're up, is the term used anywhere outside the Commonwealth? —Tamfang (talk) 17:42, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Someone on Reddit said it's in normal usage in the USA; I happen not to have consumed any domestic media that use it. —Tamfang (talk) 20:51, 18 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Why Japan is not in this ? edit

First past the post is the primary selection method in both lower and upper houses, although there is a system for preferential voting as well for certain block seats.

For lower house 289 out of 435 members are elected by first past post system, so good enough to mention that in the article, right ? 240B:10:2D83:2200:7D25:6B9E:E777:4915 (talk) 03:14, 3 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

The article appears to be for legislatures that are 100% elected via FPTP. Several MMP, parallel voting, and party-list systems also incorporate FPTP mechanisms (such as the aforementioned Japan, Germany and New Zealand) but are not added here. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:56, 28 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Why is this a different article from Plurality? edit

Shouldn't the Plurality article be merged into FPTP? Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Aside from FPTP, plurality voting also includes the multiple winner version of FPTP, Plurality block voting. Single non-transferable vote can also be described as plurality voting. The voting systems in the Multiple non-transferable vote can also be described as plurality voting. Howard the Duck (talk) 01:51, 3 March 2024 (UTC)Reply